ACA Rates Spike: Americans Consider Going Without Health Insurance
when Kassidy Hooter learned in December how much her health insurance costs were going to rise this year, she went into panic mode.
Teh Shreveport, Louisiana, resident and mother of three knew she urgently needed care – Hooter is in the final trimester of a high-risk pregnancy. But the family could no longer afford their Affordable care Act plan coverage now that a federal tax subsidy was lapsing on Dec. 31, 2025, meaning they would face thousands of dollars in additional out-of-pocket costs.
“We heavily considered that it might just be cheaper to give birth at home,” Hooter, 24, told CBS News. ”Just because thatS an insane amount of debt to take on.”
Hooter decided to forgo insurance altogether.
Courtesy of Kassidy Hooter
A local medical center offered three months of financial aid that will carry her through her due date in February and into late March. After that, she will have to bear any medical expenses on her own. Her plan now is to get her newborn on Medicaid, a government health plan for low-income Americans, as quickly as possible.
“I’m just hoping for the best,” she told CBS News.
Health insurance as “luxury”
Since its introduction in 2010, the ACA has been instrumental in cutting the share of uninsured Americans from approximately 15% to 8%, according to Nima Sheth, vice president of health justice at the National Partnership for Women and Families, a nonprofit advocacy group.
However, the number of people without health insurance is likely to surge if Congress fails to come up with a solution for the 22 million Americans who received an ACA tax credit, experts warn. The number of uninsured will rise by an average of 3.8 million each year from 2026 to 2034 without an extension of the credits, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2024.
Americans in most states have until Jan. 15 to enroll in an ACA marketplace plan, according to healthinsurance.org.
Without the tax credits,premiums for ACA enrollees who previously relied on the subsidies will increase by an average of 114%,estimates